Throne of Death
by Lacey Solane
Summary: Eight years after her disappearance, Ally O'Connell is back in Egypt. Will she finally be able to live in peace with her family, now with a new witty addition? Or will she have to fight for her life and that of her loved ones? Does Anhur still favour her? Is she still a Champion? Eight years is a long time for a Medjai Chieftain to wait. Sequel to Throne of Blood and Sand.


**A/N: Well, here it is. I'm sorry it took so long! Chapters will probably not have a regular schedule (uni is madness) and I'm really not sure if I like how this one turned out, so if you have any suggestions, constructive criticism, or you've simply missed me, drop a review. It's been too long since I wrote anything. **

**Hope you enjoy this mess! **

**Lee out**

* * *

**Throne of Death**

**Chapter 1**

An ear-splitting shriek broke the silence of the desert. From the clear blue skies, a dark shape fell, the shrieking getting louder the closer to the ground it got. When the thing hit the sand, the sound stopped, and a body came rolling down the side of a dune. It came to a halt at the base of the dune and a big puff of sand shot from the body. A girl sat upright, shaking sand from her hair and clothes.

She looked a mess.

"Fan-freaking-tastic." She muttered, patting her head to find sand in every strand and patch of scalp. "This is gonna take forever to clean. I'm going to be shedding sand everywhere for days. Oh, hell, where am I now?"

She stood up and looked around, a familiar feeling overcoming her. She crested a dune and looked toward the horizon. It was daytime, and the desert appeared scorching all around her.

"Huh." She shielded her eyes from the glare of the sand and examined the scene before her. "I'm back."

Ally O'Connell watched the waters of the Nile flow in the distance, and the ruins that stood between her and the great river, and hoped against hope that it wasn't a mummy awaiting her this time around.

* * *

The closer to the ruins she moved, the more nervous she got. She wondered, still unsure, if she was returning to the same Egypt she remembered. To the same people. Maybe even the same problems. She wondered how much time had passed, and if the people she so fondly and heartbreakingly clearly remembered even remembered her at all. She might even be returning to a time before her last visit. The desert and the ruins didn't give her much of a clue.

She walked among the ruins of some ancient city, getting closer to the river, looking around for something that stood out, or someone, but everything seemed deserted and void of any human life.

"Not everything" She corrected herself when she made out the shape of wheel tracks on the sand, recent tracks, going away from the ruins and into the desert. Ally followed the tracks backward, closer to a temple right next to the river, where she finally spotted three camels tied to a palm tree.

Her feet froze on their own accord when a man came near the camels. He was tall and seemed to be dripping water, judging by the dark shapes he left on his wake. Even as she watched his back, hair plastered to his skull, she recognized the man. How could she not?

"Rick." She muttered, more to herself than to the world. He seemed oblivious still, rummaging through the bags tied to the camels, even as her feet moved forward. "Rick!" She cried, her arms pumping harder, her legs moving faster.

The man straightened, pistol already drawn on her. It took him a few seconds to realize the shape running toward him was a girl, a few more to realize it was his sister. He lowered the pistol, in shock, just as she reached him and barely held his ground when the launched herself to him.

He staggered backward a few steps but stood standing. His arms wrapped around the girl slowly, his mind struggling to understand what was happening. His body responded faster than his brain, gripping the girl against himself as she squeezed him tighter, her face on his shoulder, apparently unaware of his soaked clothes.

"A-Ally?"

The brunette girl pulled her head back, smiling up at him with glistening eyes. "Hey, Rick. I'm back." She whispered with a trembling voice, still holding on to him. "I've missed you, brother."

A shadow moved back into the temple, making sure not to warn the siblings standing outside of its presence. It moved fast, low, unnoticed.

"How…?" Rick held the girl's shoulders and pushed her back, far enough so that he could see her all over, make sure it was truly her, unharmed, unchanged. Still, he held her close enough to assure himself she was real, not a hallucination, not a vision.

"Same way I arrived last time. I'm just here. Dropped in the middle of the desert. Close enough to be able to find you." She smiled, a couple drops falling from her eyes, and hugged her brother again. "You weren't this wet last time, though."

A chuckle escaped the man, still not completely able to wrap his head around the situation, but he hugged the girl back tightly, afraid she would be taken from him again.

"Richard O'Connell! What do you think you are doing?!" A screech startled the siblings, who looked up to find an irate Evelyn O'Connell marching toward them.

The Egyptologist walked with fire in her eyes, fists clenched on her sides, ready to beat the woman hanging on to her husband senseless. She glared at her husband and turned her murderous eyes on the woman, only to stop a couple meters short of them.

Ally smiled, even through the tears. She couldn't believe she had her best friend right there again. The brilliant woman who had completely enamoured her brother.

"Evy." Ally let go of the man and bodily turned toward the other brunette, only giving her a short moment to realize what was happening before she attacked her in a tight hug, tears spilling freely down her cheek. "Oh, Evy, I've missed you so much. Gods, I've missed you…"

"Ally…" The other woman hugged her back, looking from the shape holding her, to her husband, the back again. Was it real? Was it truly real? They'd been waiting for so long…

"Mom? Dad?" A voice called from behind one of the columns guarding the entrance to the temple.

Three faces turned toward the temple, where a shadow emerged and stepped into the sun. A little boy, maybe nine, with messy blond hair and bright blue eyes watched the scene, confused.

"Alex. Come here." Rick beckoned the boy forward, extending his right arm toward him and smiling reassuringly. He glanced toward the women still hugging near him, his smile softening into an even more tender one. "It's time you meet your Auntie Ally."

"Auntie Ally?" The girl in question straightened in Evy's arms, looking toward her brother, then her best friend, then back toward the boy, Alex. "You mean… I've got a nephew?!" Her voice rose to a screech, a smile blooming on her tear streaked face. She squeezed Evy harder, lifting her from the ground. "You had a child!"

She let the woman on the ground a moment later and turned toward the boy. Alex watched her I awe, eyes bright and wide, and she realized he looked very much like his father.

"Spitting image." She smirked at her brother and stepped closer to the boy. "Alex? Short for Alexander?" The boy nodded, his face looking up and up the closer the woman got. "Hi. I'm Ally O'Connell." She crouched in front of him and offered him her right hand. "I'm so glad to meet you, buddy."

"Are you really my Auntie? The Auntie Ally mom and dad and Uncle John told me about?"

"I must be. I'd really like to know what they told you, though." She smiled wider when the boy took her hand and shook it firmly. "How old are you?" She tilted her head, placing her once again free hands on her knees.

"I'm eight."

"And what year is this?" She looked around one, smiling at the couple watching her interact with her nephew for the first time.

"1933." Alex frowned, thinking it a strange question.

Ally gasped, surprised at how long it had been for them since she'd last been in Egypt. She glanced toward the couple, eyes once again teary.

"It's been…" She stopped, frowning lightly. "Wait. How are you eight when…?" She looked at the boy then back toward the couple. "Oh my god, it was not a stomach bug!" Ally stood up, shocked.

"Well, there was a little bug." Rick smirked, ruffling his son's hair fondly while Ally gaped at them.

Ally stopped the mental calculations and finally watched the scene before her. She could scarcely believe it. Everything had changed yet… she felt at home. "I have a nephew." Her eyes met the child's, then Evy's, and finally Rick's. "I'm back."

Rick and Evy moved back inside the temple to change their soaked clothes with dry ones, leaving Ally and Alex together near the camels. Ally watched the boy, playing with a sling and some of the pebbles from the riverside. Her nephew. He was her nephew.

"So, what did your parents tell you about me?" She sat down next to the water, cross-legged, scouring the horizon when she wasn't looking at the boy.

"Mom told me you were the smartest person she'd ever known. She showed me this picture of the three of you and told me about all these books you read, and that you spoke a lot of languages, and you were a physicist and an engineer. Is it true?" He turned toward her, excitedly watching her, slingshot forgotten.

She smiled and nodded. "It is."

"But then dad told me you wicked strong, and very fast, and you knew how to swordfight, and fire guns, and could take down anyone. Is it true?"

"Uh… yeah, I guess it is."

"Cool." His smile grew and he sat next to her. "Are you a hero? Like Hercules?"

"I'm way cooler than Hercules, buddy." She smirked and bumped her side to his. "But I guess. I'm just Ally. Auntie Ally now, apparently." She smiled again, eyes prickling once more. "I'm sorry I missed so many years of your life. I didn't want to leave."

The boy's mouth turned downwards. "They told me they always knew you'd leave. That you knew. But they couldn't explain why." His eyes asked her to explain what his parents hadn't been able to.

"I can't, either. It just happens. One moment I'm here, then I'm gone. I can't control it." She watched the waters, wondering how long she would be able to stay this time around. Alex hadn't mentioned stories of his Auntie fighting mummies or snakes, so she didn't know how much of their history Rick and Evy had actually told him. She wondered, though, why she had been sent back. There was always a mission. There was always some kind of catastrophe. What was it going to be this time?

"Everybody ready?" Rick's voice brought her out of her thoughts and she turned her head to watch the couple approach. They smiled, and she did the same. They should have some time to talk about serious matters when Alex couldn't hear. He was still a child. She'd rather not scare him with tales of mummies, monsters, and gods.

"Back to Cairo?"

"Only for a short stop. We're going back to London." Evy smiled at tried combing her son's messy hair with her fingers.

"London?" Ally glanced from her brother to her best friend, confused.

Rick offered his hand to help her up. "We live there. I think you'll like it." He patted her hair, sand still coming down from it.

Evy took her hand, eyes turning sad once more. "You're coming, right?"

Ally nodded, squeezing the woman's hand. "Yes, of course. But… we need to talk soon." She let her eyes flit back to the child, who was placing his sling on his back pocket and approaching a camel. The couple nodded and watched their son too. "Can I ride back to Cairo with him?"

"Yeah, sure." Rick answered and patted her shoulder. "Let's go home."

Ally walked toward her nephew, planning to make up for eight years of absence in his life. "Alex, buddy, mind if I ride with you?"

* * *

"Jeez, I thought he was just like you, Rick, but he's just as smart as his mom. Best of both worlds, huh, buddy?" She ruffled her nephew's hair as he snickered, Cairo visible in the distance.

"That he is." Evy smiled at the pair fondly. She'd imagined a similar scene for years, ever since she'd found out she was pregnant right around the time of the wedding. The wedding where Ally was supposed to be her maid of honour. How she'd missed her throughout the pregnancy.

"You and I are going to have so much fun, little buddy." Ally grinned at the boy, who still looked at her half in awe.

"I fear you two." Rick shook his head, trying to hide an amused smile.

"You should." Ally winked at him and Evelyn laughed. It was peaceful. Calm. A family scene she had never expected before. He smile vanished soon, though, and she looked back into the desert. "Uhm, have you… have you guys kept in touch with Ardeth?"

The couple shared a glance, something meaningful but unknown to Ally. What had happened after she'd left?

Evy spoke first. "We saw him a few times after you… left. For a couple of months. But we haven't seen him since, even before we moved to London right before having Alex. We stayed here for about three more months after you were gone but… We haven't heard from him since."

Ally sighed and set her eyes on Cairo once more. "It's been eight years. He had a lot of responsibilities. It might be a good idea to go to London and… leave Egypt behind."

"You are not going to let him know you are back?" Rick wondered, quite surprised.

"Not unless it's absolutely necessary." She pointedly stared at Rick and Evy in turn, making clear what 'absolutely necessary' meant.

"How long has it been for you?" Evy asked her. It had irked her for hours. The Ally before her looked _exactly_ like the Ally she remembered. It hadn't been eight years for her, had it?

Ally sighed again and bit her lip, unsure if she should tell the truth. Would it feel unfair for them? Or would it be better? "Six months."


End file.
